


Reasons To Stay Alive

by Bored_trash



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Depression, Eating Disorders, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, One Shot, Overdosing, Recovery, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 20:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bored_trash/pseuds/Bored_trash
Summary: This sadness carried on for weeks, the world becoming less saturated in joy and colour, until one morning, Oikawa opened his eyes to find all the happiness in his life had been taken away from him, extracted from his body; gradually siphoned off. The world, which had once been so full of colour, was now monotone, layer upon layer of grey.-Oikawa suffers from depression, Iwaizumi tries to help him recover.





	Reasons To Stay Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Haikyuu!! Or the book Reasns To Stay Alive 
> 
> TW; suicde attempt, self-harm, overdosing, eating disorders. Please be careful while reading this if this could trigger you. 
> 
> If you feel like you're going to harm yourself, call Samaritans at 116 123
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this! :)

*

It started off gradually. One day, Oikawa woke up, slightly less happy than he usually was. He could still laugh and talk with his friends, and enjoy volleyball practice, and was motivated to study, but the extra layer of enthusiasm he usually held for his activities had been erased overnight. The next day, he felt even less happy, and found that being with friends tired him out after a while, that he was performing worse in practice, and could only do an hour of homework that night before collapsing into bed and falling into a coma-like sleep.

This sadness carried on for weeks, the world becoming less saturated in joy and colour, until one morning, Oikawa opened his eyes to find all the happiness in his life had been taken away from him, extracted from his body; gradually siphoned off. The world, which had once been so full of colour, was now monotone, layer upon layer of grey.

This was the first day he didn't want to get out of bed at all, couldn't talk at all (he found it took too much energy to open his mouth) and didn't do any work at all (he surreptitiously slept through all of his classes). Even volleyball, the most important thing in his life, had become dull and pointless in his point of view. His serves were weak, his stamina low, his receives subpar. His team pretended not to notice, knowing his history of perfectionism, thinking his poor performance would be upsetting him. But he wasn't upset. So when the coach gently suggested he sit down for a break for the rest of practice, he hasn't been offended or upset, instead he had felt a deep sense of relief, and practically sprinted to the bench.

From the bench, he saw Iwaizumi looking over and glaring at him every once in a while. He couldn't comprehend what he had done to make his best friend angry, and didn't care enough to find out, so instead closed his eyes, used his bag as a pillow, and fell asleep, savouring the numbness that unconsciousness brought him.

At the end of practice, Iwaizumi shook him awake violently. "Get up. Practice is over. I want to talk to you." Oikawa heaved himself up (the effort of this exhausted him) and followed his best friend silently to the changing rooms, dragging his feet behind him, ignoring the squeaking noise they made on the floors. The noise seemed to bother Iwaizumi, and Oikawa could see him tense in annoyance everytime his trainer emitted the noise. Eventually he snapped, and spun around. "Jesus, can you stop that? It's so annoying. What's got into you today, trashkawa?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." He responded robotically, eyes glazed and staring at nothing, mouth set in a straight line. He would normally at least put on an act for his friend, but he couldn't summon the energy to, as all he could see were multitudes of grey in every direction, stretching out eternally like red-shift.

"You're clearly not. You've been acting weird for weeks, and I've been trying to ignore it, but I'm worried about you, okay?" Iwaizumi admits, blushing slightly.

Oikawa forces a laugh. It grates mechanically, and sounds callous and unkind. "Why do you care so much, Iwaizumi? You're not my Mother." With that, he turned around and walked home, not bothering to change back into his school uniform. He turned quickly, so didn't notice Iwaizumi flinch slightly at the formal name, and his best friend's Arctic-cold attitude.

Weeks passed by in the same fashion. The days flitted past like butterflies, not touching Oikawa. They did not pay attention to him, therefore he did not pay attention to them. He walked through life like a zombie, the only thing changing in his life was his complexion paling, his stamina decreasing, and his conversations, once long and stimulating, becoming monosyllabic and dull.

Iwaizumi noticed of all this and felt a deepening sense of worry for his friend. Every time he saw Oikawa, his heart felt cold, and an ominous darkness pressed into his subconscious, leaving him shivering. He knew something was wrong. Deeply wrong. A month previosuky, his friend would have been debating loudly with Matsukawa and Hanamaki and himself ("Seriously Iwa-chan, how can you not believe in aliens? Only small-minded sociopaths don't! Stop laughing Makki, you know what I'm saying is true!") but now, even if Iwaizumi tried to provoke him, he wouldn't care. ("Hey Oikawa, does it annoy you that I don't believe in aliens?" "I don't mind. You're entitled to your own opinion.").

He knew that Hanamaki and Matsukawa also noticed the change, because they had approached him one day after practice, worried.

"Do you know if anything's wrong with Oikawa?" Matsukawa had asked, eyes imploring him for a solution to the problem.

"I don't know. I can tell something's up with him, but he won't tell me what." Iwaizumi had responded.

His friends had drooped at this statement, at the finality of it - Iwaizumi's lack of an answer sealing off for them the idea of Oikawa getting better anytime soon. They thought that, if Oikawa's best friend was stuck for ideas on how to help the situation, it was inevitable that it would only get much, much worse before it got even slightly better.

Iwaizumi hated seeing his best friend so unlike himself, so distant from his previous bubbly personality, so decided to ask Oikawa what was wrong, as many times as was necessary. Later, he would look back on this decision and regret it slightly. Although it had been a catalyst for change, the change it brought about just made Oikawa's situation even worse than it initially had been, and he felt guilty for that, even years, decades later.

*

For the past week, Iwaizumi had been constantly bombarding Oikawa with questions. He was always asking if he was okay, always seemed to be watching him, and his look of concern was, frankly, beginning to piss Oikawa off.

He had been sat at his desk, staring at nothing, when his phone buzzed for the fifth time that day. Another message from Iwaizumi.

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
Are you okay?

Oikawa sighed. He was persistent, he had to give him that. But Oikawa didn't want to respond. He was becoming a black hole and was worried that if he let anybody get to close, he would suck them into the darkness with him. So he ignored it, again. But the messages kept pouring through.

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
Oikawa I'm worried

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
Can you please just reply?

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
Just so I know you're okay

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
Oikawa you know I can keep doing this forever.

Annoyance pushed through Oikawa's numbness for a second, and Oikawa let the bitter feeling run through him. He picked up the phone and typed out a response, pressing send without thinking through the curtness of the message.

 **Message to: Iwa-chan**  
I'm fine. Stop texting me like this - you're not my mother.

There were a few minutes of blissful silence, until the phone buzzed again.

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
I just care about you, Oikawa. I'm worried.

Again, the anger flooded through Oikawa's consciousness, clouding his thoughts in red. _'Why's he attacking me like this? He should just leave me alone, he's not gaining anything from being my friend and I'm certainly not gaining anything from him constantly following me around and reminding me of how much of a better person I used to be.'_

He replied to the text.

 **Message to: Iwa-chan**  
Don't bother worrying. You wouldn't want to know what's wrong with me, you wouldn't understand.

 **Message from: Iwa-chan**  
I could try to.

 **Message to: Iwa-chan**  
God, you're just making me feel worse.

Oikawa dropped the phone onto the desk, breathing heavily. He felt guilty for being so rude to his best friend, the only person who was actually trying to help him. _'You should try to feel something. Your numbness is bothering him. Think, how can you stop feeling numb?_ ' He thought for a few minutes, and paced around the room. While doing this, he stubbed his toe on the desk. The pain was sharp, and it gave him an idea.

As he was walking to the bathroom, to the cupboard, to the pack of razors, he knew that the following events would make him cross a line in some way. To the eyes of normal people, this action would push him off the brink of normality, sanity. But the idea was stuck in his head. _'This is the only way you can feel better. Nobody else will understand, but you know it makes sense.'_

He got to the bathroom quickly, and locked the door behind him. It only took him a few seconds to remove a razor from the cupboard, and he pulled out the first aid kit along with it.

His back made contact with the cupboard, and he slid down it until he was sat on the cool tile of the bathroom floor. His breathing became fast and ragged as he looked at the razor; it's cool, metallic gleam beckoning him, hypnotising him.

He pushed up his sleeves and, with trembling hands, pressed the razor into the pale skin of his wrist and slid it across. It was more painful than he'd anticipated, and he hissed involuntarily. But the pain somehow made him think clearly, and he felt more alive than he had since the numbness, the darkness, had started.

He made two more cuts with the razor, and then made himself stop so he wouldn't spin out of control. He didn't want to seriously injure himself in a way that would be noticeable - he could get sectioned, and that would mean getting cut off from this new source of life.

His hands were still shaking from the adrenaline, and he took out a bandage from the first-aid kit. He wrapped it around the cuts that oozed bright red blood, applying enough pressure to stem the bleeding, despite the fact that it fascinated him in some perverse way.

Once the bandage had been applied, he put the razor and first-aid kit back into the cupboard, tugged his sleeves down over the bandage, wincing slightly at the pain the sensitive cuts made him feel as they rubbed against the bandage. He made his way back to his bedroom and went to sleep, ignoring the new texts on his phone from Iwaizumi.

*

Iwaizumi was suspicious. Oikawa had been more outgoing in the past few weeks, but he knew, somehow, that some ominous event had brought the mood change about.

As he watched Oikawa talking and laughing with Matsukawa, Iwaizumi thought about what Oikawa could possibly have done to make himself feel better. _'Maybe he's going to therapy? No, he's way too private a person to do that. Plus, it wouldn't make him better so suddenly, it would be more gradual. It has to be something more extreme.'_

His gaze slid back to Oikawa. Then suddenly, he realised something. His best friend was making some sort of over-the-top gesture with his arms, causing his blazer sleeve to slide down slightly. Just visible underneath the fabric was a white strip covering his wrist. _'A bandage.'_

In that moment, Iwaizumi's worst fears were realised. He was aware that self-harm was a thing that some people did, but it seemed like some distant issue that would never affect him or the people he knew. But the evidence was almost impossible to deny, and it pointed to the unavoidable conclusion, that Oikawa was injuring himself in some way.

He didn't waste any time in coming up with a plan to confront his friend, and that evening he rang Oikawa's doorbell, determined not to leave until the truth had been extracted from his friend. Oikawa answered the door, and immediately looked surprised that it was Iwaizumi visiting. He tried to make his anxiety less obvious, so attempted to act casual.

"Hey, Iwa-chan! Did you miss me so much you couldn't wait until school to se me again?" Underneath the playful tone, Iwaizumi detected the anxiety. It would've been invisible to anybody but him - after all, he had been friends with Oikawa for a decade.

"We need to talk. It's important." He said, solemnly.

Oikawa was now more obviously worried. "Wow, Iwa-chan, you look so serious! Come in, I just finished eating dinner." He flashed an artificial, unconvincing smile.

When he was inside the house, and it was clear nobody else was home, Iwaizumi started talking, getting straight to the point. "Why do you have bandages on your wrists?" He asked bluntly.

Oikawa balked for a second, then started to make an excuse. "Oh, I just cut myself while I was making dinner a few nights ago. You know me, I'm just clumsy like that!" Another fake smile, so wide it looked near-painful.

"You cut yourself so badly it needed a bandage? While cooking?" Iwaizumi questioned, unconvinced. He knew his friend was lying through his teeth.

"Iwa-chan, you overestimate my culinary abilities!" Oikawa laughed, a gasp that sounded slightly painful.

"If you're really telling me the truth, I'm sure you'll have no problems showing me your wrist." Iwaizumi said.

Oikawa closed off, abandoning his fake happy demeanour. "I can't do that, Iwaizumi."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

Iwaizumi stepped forward. Oikawa stepped back. "Why can't you, Oikawa?"

"You don't want to see."

Iwaizumi took two steps forward. Oikawa took two equal steps back, and realised his back was touching the wall. He was trapped in position.

"Just let me see, Oikawa. Prove to me this isn't what I think it is." Iwaizumi knew, deep down, that Oikawa had hurt himself on purpose, but a tiny part of him was still desperately trying to argue against the obvious fact.

"No." Oikawa said. He looked scared now, almost terrified.

Iwaizumi couldn't let the farce carry on for any longer. He audibly reached forward and snatched Oikawa's arm in his hand tightly. "Let go, Iwa-chan, you're hurting me!" Oikawa shouted, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Iwaizumi just was completely focussed on the task at hand.

He pulled down the bandage as gently as he could, and saw a line of cuts, at least ten of them, neat, horizontal, and horrifyingly deep. They were angry red things, and Iwaizumi immediately dropped Oikawa's arm in horror.

Tears were falling down his best friend's face. "You did this on purpose." Iwaizumi said, a cold sense of fear snaking around his organs, letting him know that something was seriously, seriously wrong.

"I'm so s-sorry - you were never meant to see!" Oikawa hiccuped, crying harder now.

"You know I have to tell someone about this, Oikawa. I can't just let you do this to yourself." Iwaizumi said, voice breaking halfway through the sentence as he tried to hold back his own tears. He couldn't comprehend why somebody as perfect as Oikawa would want to do something as awful as this to himself.

"No. I don't want my parents to find out. I don't want school to find out. Please, don't tell anybody!" Oikawa begged.

"I'm going to have to tell somebody." Iwaizumi responded firmly.

Oikawa turned cold then. "If you do, I'll never speak to you again." In his desperation, he turned mean and manipulative. This wasn't Oikawa speaking. It was the part of him that would stop at nothing to destroy its host, and it overtook Oikawa's consciousness now.

Iwaizumi recognised that it was useless to argue against his friend. "Fine, fine. But if you do this again, I will tell somebody. It's for your own good, and I'd rather you be healthy and ignoring me than unhealthy and letting me enable your own self-destruction."

"Fine, I won't do it again." Oikawa conceded, his mind already whirring with new ways to feel alive. 'You could stop eating, that would put you in control, too.' He decided he would do this, and it made it so much easier for Oikawa to accept his friend's compromise.

"Okay. I'll be checking your arms every day, by the way. Just until you're better." Iwaizumi said, not totally understanding that Oikawa couldn't just get better in a few days, or weeks, or even months.

They talked a little more, until Iwaizumi finally went home just before midnight. He went to sleep that night feeling slightly better about Oikawa's situation, unaware that his friend already had a new plan to hurt himself, just in a less obvious way.

*  
The next morning, Oikawa didn't have breakfast. Or lunch, or dinner.   
He knew Iwaizumi would be alert and watching him for other warning signs, but he knew how to manipulate his friend into believing he was healthier again. When he met Iwaizumi on the roof for lunch, he made sure to show up a little late, holding an empty crisp packet (the actual crisps had been tipped into a bin on his way to their meeting spot). Deep down, he knew it would only be able to last for a short while, but the feeling of control that Oikawa gained from starving himself was just as good, if not better, in some ways, than the self harm.

He got into the routine of weighing himself everyday, writing down his weight in the margins of a dog-eared notepad from middle school, feeling a great sense of satisfaction whenever he lost a particularly large amount.

Unbeknownst to Oikawa, Iwaizumi was aware of the new self-destructive habit his best friend had started. He had done some research on depression when he had first discovered his best friend's self harm, and was aware that stopping eating was another behaviour depressed people displayed.

So everyday he would watch Oikawa eat his lunch (he never directly confronted Oikawa about it, sensing that it would cause an irreparable, irreversible rupture in their friendship, and, ultimately, would do more harm than good). He also gave him a cereal bar on the way to school in the mornings, and when he could, went to his house to cook him dinner. ("Why are you doing all this, Iwa-chan?" "Because I know you're awful at cooking." "But I'm not hungry." "Just try to eat something, otherwise I'll get self-conscious about my culinary skills." "Fine. A quarter" "a third." "Deal.")

At first, Oikawa appreciated Iwaizumi's efforts to feed him, but he soon realised that without the ability to starve himself, the old, familiar numbness was creeping back into his life, slowly but surely.

He became more and more robotic as the weeks went on, again becoming silent and dead eyed; a zombie. He knew Iwaizumi was worrying about him, knew it from the constant 'are you okays' and worried looks. But he was eating, and wasn't self harming, so his friend wasn't able to hold an intervention like he had previously.

Oikawa subsisted in this state for about two months (the months passed as both seconds and eternities, although they were memoryless blanks) until one day, he decided he couldn't do it anymore. Life was worthless to him and pointless to go through in the numb blanket that covered him and weighed him down endlessly.

So one day (he thinks it was at some point in June, but can't be sure) he went to his bathroom after school, eyes flicking over the razors without reaching for them (they were too risky, almost bound to fail him. Plus, he felt, irrationally, that Iwaizumi would be less angry with him if he avoided the razors like he had promised) and instead grabbed hold of the paracetamol.

He ate two packets in total, one pill at a time at a fairly slow pace (this would end up saving his life, since by the end of his second packet he was barely conscious). He was already sat on the floor, but his body slumped forward a little when he finally let go of consciousness, his mind succumbing to a different sort of numbness; a welcome one.

Oblivion.

*

"Hello?"

"Is this Iwaizumi?"

"Yeah. Wait, you're Oikawa's dad, right? What's happened?"

"He's in the hospital. He's stable, but it's bad. He had to get his stomach pumped. Overdose. Paracetamol, they said. How didn't we realise he felt this bad? Why-"

"I'm on my way."

Dial tone.

*

"Hey, Iwa-chan." Oikawa croaked as his best friend approached the hospital bed, staring in horror at how pale and washed out his best friend looked.

Iwaizumi didn't wait to get to the point. "Why. Why did you do it?"

"I don't really know. Just thought...thought it was all pointless."

Iwaizumi surprised both himself and Oikawa then by choking out a sob. It sounded lonely, similar to the sound a dog makes when abandoned by its owners. "I don't get it, Oikawa! Why can't you just try?"

"I did try. I tried for months, but in the end I didn't want to anymore. Do you know what it feels like to be trapped in life? It was so bad, but there wasn't a clear, fixable reason for its shittiness, so all I could do was this." Oikawa said, gesturing at himself, also becoming emotional. His near-death experience had staved off the darkness for a while.

Iwaizumi suddenly had an idea. "Reasons to stay alive." He murmured to himself.

"What?" Oikawa asked, confused.

"Every day from now on, we can find a reason to stay alive. It can be anything, it can be tiny, but it has to be something that brings you even a fraction of joy."

"Okay. Fine. What's reason one?"

"Easy. Volleyball."

*

Reasons To Stay Alive

Day 1: Volleyball.

Day 2: Baking.

Day 3: Friends.

Day 4: Watching the sun rise.

Day 5: Good books.

"You know, I think this list might be working, at least for now." Oikawa said as he reached for a book on a high shelf that Iwaizumi couldn't quite reach, before passing it down to his (slightly embarrassed) friend.

Iwaizumi smiled. Oikawa was looking a little better. His eyes had gained back some of their shine, and he looked almost blissful in the library, his brown hair glowing under the soft yellow pools of light the lamps cast onto them.

It was in this moment that he realised something, a revelatory, deep truth. Iwaizumi noticed that he was in love with his best friend, and his heart surged with delight every time the brunette smiled at him, genuinely, carefree. _'That's a problem for another day.'_ He thought to himself, as they compared blurbs in the quiet room. ("God, Oikawa, aliens again?")

Day 6: Pastries

Day 7: Meeting (and befriending) a cat on the street.

Day 8: Competition.

Day 9: Cringy rom-coms.

Day 10: Notes colour coded with pastel highlighter.

"Seriously, Iwa-chan. You have to buy a pack of these, they're so good!" Oikawa exclaimed as he lined up a ruler against his page of notes (Iwaizumi struggled to hold in his laughter at how much of a perfectionist his friend was) and carefully drew the violet highlighter across the page.

In this moment, Iwaizumi again felt the strange pull on his heart at the endearing habits Oikawa possessed.

Day 11: Blossom

Day 12: Daisies

Day 13: Swimming in the ocean on a sunny day.

Day 14: Dogs (especially Golden Retrievers (Iwaizumi) and Shiba Inus (Oikawa).

Day 15: ...

"Come on, Oikawa, one reason?" Iwaizumi asked, knowing it to be a pointless endeavour.

"Oh my god, Iwaizumi. Come up with one yourself." Oikawa said, voice cold and hard, lifting up his hand in a gesture of annoyance.  
His sleeve, slightly loose, slipped down, and revealed what Iwaizumi had been dreading, but expecting. Another bandage.

"Oikawa... I thought you were getting better." Iwaizumi said miserably. He was tempted to shout, to yell, to get his anger out, but he knew it would only make the situation worse.

"Jesus Christ. Why do you care so much?" Oikawa shouted, face turning red.

The next sentence wasn't planned, and Iwaizumi didn't realise he had said it until it was far too late. "Because I'm in love with you."

Oikawa paused, anger draining out of him in a second. "What?"

Iwaizumi's heart was pounding. "I'm in love with you, Oikawa. I'm surprised you hadn't noticed by now."

"How can you be in love with me? I'm a total wreck." Oikawa said, astounded.

"I just am. Look, I get it if you think it's weird, and we can just forget about this and never mention it again if y-"

Oikawa Iwaizumi off mid-sentence. "No. You know... I sort of," he laughed nervously, "I think I love you too."

*

Day 1836: Picnics.

Iwaizumi and Oikawa were sitting next to each other in their apartment, huddled together on the sofa under s thick, grey blanket.

"Do you know that my wish came true, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa said, brown eyes alight with life.

"What was your wish?" Iwaizumi asked, unable to fight back a smile.

"To be happy." Oikawa says simply, eyes filling up with tears - happy tears this time.

"Iwaizumi feels a relief so huge that he can't help but cry too. "I'm glad, Oikawa. I'm proud of you."

Oikawa rests his head on Iwaizumi's shoulder, and together they watch the sun set over this new city that they've made a home, a life in, this new life in which they've both finally found their hard-won happiness.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points if you spotted my subconscious attempt at physics revision~


End file.
